Dobber’s Video Blog – Draft Strategy
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Whose line is it anyway?
Some of you might know me for my work at Talented Mr. Roto where I covered fantasy hockey the past two seasons. As you probably know by now, Talented Mr. Roto was acquired by ESPN where fantasy hockey gets barely more coverage than fantasy sheep herding. So I’ve moved on to DobberHockey, which I consider the premier fantasy hockey site on the Web.
Training camps open tomorrow or Friday for most teams so for my first column I’ll focus on things to keep an eye on as the pre-season unfolds. An important factor in evaluating a player’s fluctuation in value from one season to the other and even during the regular season is the players he lines up next to. Any player who had the good fortune of lining up next to Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux saw his fantasy value increase exponentially. So with this in mind, let’s take a look at some players whose fantasy value, and thus draft value, will hinge upon the linemates with whom they are matched during training camp. I won’t cover all teams, focusing only on situations that hold the most importance as far as poolies are concerned.
Three Goalies with Everything to Prove
Training Camp is here and there’s plenty for National Hockey League goaltenders to prove this season. In fact, all 30 teams have some type of question mark surrounding their tandems - and in some cases - trios. Think about the Western Conference alone and conglomerates of Q’s quickly arise; Can Dominik Hasek stay as healthy as he did last season? Will David Aebischer and Alex Auld join forces to help save Phoenix? Does Peter Budaj have the poise to play 70 games?
(School of Block is subbing in for the Wild West this week)
Calgary, Buffalo and Boston
As keeper league hockey pools increase in number each year, fantasy junkies become more active in the off-season as they prepare their team for the coming year. Rebuild? Retool? Tweak? Whatever your intentions, it helps to get all the information you can about your players.
Throughout the off-season, FPL will look at a pair of teams each week and give you the fantasy lowdown. Bucking the trend of past years, we will review alphabetically – in reverse. Just to be different.
(This column was originally published by The Hockey News and MSN.ca. ESPN no longer carries it due to their recent purchase of The Talented Mr. Roto. In this man's opinion, when the bigwigs get their claws into a fantasy site, the hockey section suffers. Yet another reason why DobberHockey is the best damn fantasy hockey source out there!)
Fantasy Season Prep Work . Burnsy Style
Once again we have reached that wonderful time of the year where all of our normal responsibilities take a back seat to prepping for the upcoming fantasy season. The Dobber site is in full swing with daily additions to the information conglomeration on the site, and the disappointments of last year are all but erased from our minds.
Additionally, September is the only time that we are all tied for first place in our pools, and while last year’s winners are fairly confident in their strategies, last year’s losers are revamping their approach. I considered writing an article that would add to the piles of information already on the site, but then reconsidered, and decided to write a little preseason guide that will help everyone equally, regardless of last year’s results. I now give you my own special twist on the “preseason guide”, with Burnsy’s Top 10 Preseason Tips. Enjoy.
Keeper League #6
How to Start a Keeper League – Version #6 This 'Lifetime Insanity Pool' is fairly typical, but it puts heavier emphasis on defensemen scoring. It also requires roster updates every two weeks, i.e. choose the 16 guys you would like to activate. They also make it clear that wimps need not apply - strict rules [...]
Rookie Battles in the West
Camps open up in three days (in the case of Anaheim and Los Angeles – they are already open) and hockey poolies are very interested in the kids that will be in camp with a legitimate shot at a roster spot. This week (as well as last), we’ll analyze the odds of a rookie cracking the lineup and what kind of impact we can expect to see in the campaign ahead.
A Roto-Look Ahead
“Schedule rating” is a reflection of the amount of games that a team will play in the seven-day period given, in conjunction with two other factors: 1) The amount of those games that are played at home. 2) The quality of team defense that they will be up against. DobberHockey reader Tom Reeve (aka [...]
Big Men On Campus
While they may be at different stages in their careers, three monster players will be the center-well, winger and defenseman- of attention whether they make the NHL or not during upcoming rookie and main training camps. Plus, I gloat a bit about predicting Russia's new additions were more than just fluff, and a tough critic has some rare kind words in Super Series news.
Part II: The Eastern Conference
FOR THOSE ABOUT TO BLOCK, WE SALUTE YOU!
In part two of the two-part series, we take a look at the goaltending situation in the Eastern Conference.